Upgrade WAMP Safely

Question

How can I upgrade my WAMP Server WITHOUT LOSING my configuration? My current version is WAMP 3.0.8 and I want to upgrade it to WAMP 3.1.0.

FROM

WAMP 3.0.8

• Apache 2.4.23
• MySQL 5.7.14
• PHP 5.6.25, 7.0.10

TO

WAMP 3.1.0

• Apache 2.4.27
• MySQL 5.7.19
• PHP 5.6.31, 7.0.23, 7.1.9

Answer 1

First as of WAMPServer 3 the WAMPServer code and the versions of Apache/PHP/MySQL/mariaDB are treated seperately.

So you can upgrade the WAMPServer version without touching anything of yours, like your website code or the versions of Apache/MySQL/PHP you are currently using.

So go to the WAMPServer Backup Repo and download the Wampserver update 3.1.3 (or whatever the latest version of WAMPServer when you read this) from the second section of the page titles Wampserver Updates.

That will upgrade the WAMPServer code, and nothing else. All code/databases will remain just as they were before.

Adding more/other versions of Apache/MySQL/PHP/mariaDB components

Again go to the repo, you will find a section on that page for each component. By default you only see the latest version of all the available addons, to see all available version of each component, click the See all available versions button.

Now you can download whichever version of Apache/PHP/MySQL that you want to ADDON to WAMPServer. Each ADDON component will install (remember to Run as Administrator when installing) the component but not activate it.

Remember WAMPServer can have multiple versions of each component available and you can switch between them to suit whichever project you are working on.

So after installing a new version of a component, you have the old one still active and the new one available to switch to.

See left click wampmanager->Apache->version for example and you will see all the available versions of Apache. This applies to PHP and MySQL and mariaDB as well.

So you can switch about between compatible version quite easily.

Switching versions of MySQL/mariaDB

This is the only component that requires a bit of extra work. Before switching from the old version of MySQL to the new one, backup the database(s) you want to move to the new version of MySQL.

Then switch the version of MySQL to the new one. Recreate all the user accounts so they match the old ones and then restore the backup you made earlier to the new Database.

NOTE: You have not removed the old version of the MySQL server, it is still there. It is now up to you whether you uninstall the old version or keep it around as a backup for a while.

Personally I have many versions of Apache/MySQL/PHP available to switch to. So for example if you have more than one project that you maintain, you can keep all the versions of any component available and when you have to go back to a project, its all there waiting for you.

It is also great if you are considering upgrading an old project to a new version of PHP for example. You can switch between versions at the click of a menu while looking for incompatibilities.